“Of course,” she said quickly. “Every normal woman wants children. And I should want them too.”
“There—that settles it,” he said with triumph. “You can’t combine children and a profession.”
“But I can!” she cried. “And I should give the children the very best possible care, too! Of course there are successive periods in which the mother would have to give her whole attention to the children. But if she lives till she is sixty-five the sum total of her forty or forty-five married years that she has to give up wholly to her children amounts to but a few years. There remains all the balance of her life that she could give to other work. Do you realize how tremendously the world is changing, and how women’s work is changing with it?”
“Oh, let’s don’t mix in statistics, and history, and economics with our love!”
“But we’ve got to if our love is to last!” she cried. “We’re living in a time when things are changing. We’ve got to consider the changes. And the greatest changes are, and are going to be, in woman’s work. Up in our attic are my great-grandmother’s wool carders, her spinning wheel, her loom, all sorts of things; she spun, wove, made all the clothing, did everything. These things are now done by professional experts; that sort of work has been taken away from woman. Now all that’s left for the woman to do in the home is to cook, clean, and care for children. Life is still changing. We are still developing. Some time these things too will be done, and better done, by professional experts—though just how, or just when, I can’t even guess. Once there was a strong sentiment against the child being taken from the mother and being sent to school. Now most intelligent parents are glad to put their children in charge of trained kindergartners at four or five. And in the future some new institution, some new variety of trained specialist, may develop that will take charge of the child for a part of the day at an even earlier age. That’s the way the world is moving!”
“Thanks for your lecture on the Rise, Progress and Future of Civilization,” he said ironically, trying to suppress himself. “But interesting as it was, it has nothing whatever to do with the case. We’re not talking about civilization, and the universe, and evolution, and the fourth dimension, and who’s got the button. We’re talking about you and me. About you and me, and our love.”
“Yes, Arnold, about you and me and our love,” she cried eagerly. “I spoke of these things only because they concern you and me and our love so very, very much.”
“Of all things for two lovers to talk about!” he exclaimed with mounting exasperation.
“They are the things of all things! For our love, our life, hangs upon them!”
“Well, anyhow, you haven’t got these new institutions, these new experts,” he retorted, brushing the whole matter aside. “You’re living to-day, not in the millennium!”